Duality
by Veery
Summary: When Harry wanders away from the Dursley house as a child, no one is anywhere near prepared for just how far he is going to go.
1. Chapter 1

**Someone else seriously needs to do a Will of the Empress crossover, because right now the only stories in this category are both with Harry Potter and both written by me...**

**It might be irresponsible to start a story while I am still working on another one, but what can I say, I was inspired. I actually came up with the general idea for this before I started writing ****Dislocation****. For those of you that are following that fanfic, don't worry. I will still be updating that one too. **

**As I mentioned in the Authors notes for ****Dislocation**** (in case anyone actually reads my ramblings), this story is essentially about Harry being sent to the Circleverse as a kid and being raised by Briar, Tris, Daja and Sandry. Here are the ages at the beginning:**

**Harry: 6 **

**Sandry: 18 **

**Tris: 19 **

**Briar:19(ish) **

**Daja: 18 **

**Glaki: 9 **

**Evvy: 15(ish)**

**And I'm not really sure how old the adults were to begin with (or that it really matters to the story beyond general decade anyway). **

**Hope you like it.**

**(Note: If Halloween isn't celebrated with Trick-or-Treating where you live, you might want to do some quick research. And once again, the summary might be changed)**

**Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters or the books that they came from. They are the creations of JK Rowling and Tamora Pierce. All that is mine is this particular scenario that I am putting them in.**

**...**

**October 31****st****, 1986: Privet Drive**

Even at six, Harry could tell that Halloween was the Dursleys' least favourite holiday. It was one thing for them to acknowledge holidays that promoted normal behaviour or had a completely historical basis, but Halloween in particular went against everything that the Dursleys believed in.

(The story about the three men following a star to find a baby in a barn seemed magical to _him_, but the Dursleys seemed to find Christmas to be acceptable for some reason.)

But regardless of Aunt Petunia's scandalized looks at the children running around dressed as vampires, fairy princesses, werewolves, comic book characters and witches (which seemed to bother her the most) and Uncle Vernon's complaints about all the riffraff coming to the door and 'those young hooligans' that had thrown eggs at the house on Halloween last year, there was no way that Dudley would be cheated out of an enormous bucket of candy. So, Dudley was dressed up like a rugby player and given a large plastic tub shaped like a pumpkin with handles, Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia pulled on their coats, the lights were turned off to discourage anybody that might otherwise come up to Number 14 in search of chocolate, and Harry was instructed to not open the door for anyone but them and left alone in the dark house.

For a few minutes after they left, Harry stood in the hallway and let his eyes adjust to the dim light that filtered in through the windows. The house seemed very big all of the sudden, with lots of shadows, and a creak from upstairs followed by a rustling noise had him darting to his cupboard and burying himself under his blanket.

He remembered his Aunt and Uncle scorning the idea that monsters could exist, and for once he found himself hoping that they were right.

The rustling, he tried to rationalize, was probably from the branch of the tree in the front yard on the roof, and sometimes the house just made noises on its own. But there was no way that he could be _sure_, so it was probably best to just stay hidden where he was for a little while.

While he was listening intently for more noises from upstairs, he heard something else.

It was the excited voices of the kids outside with their parents, running from house to house and chattering happily. Harry had never gone trick-or-treating before, so he wondered, was it really that much fun?

Harry knew that he would get in trouble if he was caught, but when he weighed going out to see for himself what it was like against lying in his cupboard listening for the noises from upstairs (which a part of his mind was insisting were coming from something with fur and fangs and six eyes and an empty belly), he decided that it would be worth it.

Harry thought for a moment. He knew that when you went Trick-or-Treating you were supposed to have a costume and a bag for candy. He didn't know what to do for a costume, but he took the case off of his thin pillow for a bag.

He hesitated at the door, and then took a deep breath and went out. He shut the door carefully behind him and set off.

Outside, there were costumed children moving in herds with their friends and family. It was between twilight and night, and some of the younger kids were clearly enthusiastic about being outside so late. The houses were decorated with skeletons and cobwebs, and Jack-o-Lanterns (some fake) flickered with light on the porches.

The Dursleys would have turned right to go towards Piers Polkiss' house, so Harry went to the next block on the left. For a few minutes he stood shivering slightly (his sweater wasn't quite thick enough) at the corner, unsure of what to do. Then a large, noisy group started making their way to the house closest to him, and he gathered up enough nerve to quietly join them. They clambered up onto the porch, and the door opened to a chorus of "Trick or Treat!" The man who opened it smiled at them and dropped a wrapped gumball into each of their bags.

For a while, Harry kept trailing the group he was with to other houses. After the second house, Harry started to feel less nervous and actually began enjoying the excitement and anticipation of waiting to see what he would get. The decorations were cheap and gaudy, but it was still the closest to magic he had ever been. Still, he couldn't help but feel a slight twinge every time he say kids run excitedly back to their parents waiting at the curb to show them what they had been given.

On the fifth house he stopped at, an older lady with large glasses opened the door. She handed out little chocolate bars to him and the four other children at the door. She exclaimed at the others' costumes, but looked at him uncertainly.

"What are you dressed as, dear?" the lady asked, peering at the worn, very baggy pants and sweater he had on that Dudley had outgrown at age four.

Not really sure how to respond, Harry looked at his feet, mumbled "Me," and hurried off.

Not wanting to get lost, Harry stuck with circling the block. Amidst the swarms of children and parents, no one really noticed that he was on his own. Once he had done a full circuit he paused. He had not run into the Dursleys yet, but he probably shouldn't push his luck. He needed to get back to the house before they did. Besides, he already had more candy than he had ever even imagined having. With that in mind, he started down the street to his own block.

He was in sight of the Dursley house when a hand grabbed his shoulder. For a moment he froze, picturing Aunt Petunia or Uncle Vernon, but when he was turned around he found himself facing a man he didn't know, with a kind of long black coat that reached the ground and a hood. He couldn't see much of his face, but there was some pale blond hair trailing onto his shoulder.

"Do you live around here, boy?" the man asked, and something about his tone made Harry shiver. He instinctively glanced back at the Dursleys' house, and the man followed his gaze. The hand on his shoulder tightened.

Harry had heard enough of his Aunt and Uncle warning Dudley about talking to strangers that alarm bells were going off in his head. He wasn't sure why anyone would want to kidnap him (or that he would mind being kidnapped), but something about the stranger holding onto him told him that he shouldn't take the chance.

"Are you mute, boy?" the man snapped, sounding impatient. "I asked you a question!"

Harry jerked himself out his grip, but the man caught his wrist and pulled him back. His other hand went to Harry's forehead and pushed back the messy hair. His eyes fixated on Harry's scar.

Harry struggled, but he couldn't break free. With panic setting in, he did the only thing he could think of.

He bent down and bit the man's hand as hard as he could.

As the man abruptly let go and said a few of the words that he had heard Uncle Vernon say when Harry had accidentally dropped the frying pan on his foot, Harry dropped the pillow case and ran.

Most children in that kind of situation would have done the sensible thing and headed straight home. But even when he was in sight of it, Harry didn't even think of going to the empty Dursley house. Instead he bolted off in the other direction, following the familiar path to his school without even realizing it.

A jet of light flew past him as he ran, grazing his arm. Harry barely even noticed. People on the streets turned to look at him as he ran by, but no one called out to him or tried to stop him.

Harry made it to the school playground and hid behind the dumpsters that he sometimes used to hide from Dudley's gang. They was a small rectangle of open space behind it caused by the shape of the wall, and the opening was so small that even Harry had to squeeze through. He huddled down there and peered out from the slight gap between the dumpsters.

It turned out that his instincts had been right after all. The man _had _followed him. And he wasn't alone.

There were four of them, all wearing the same hooded thing that the first man had been wearing. He had gotten to his hiding spot just in time: they had gotten to the schoolyard moments after he had.

From his hiding spot, Harry could hear them talking in low voices. He strained to listen.

"...sure it's him?"

Another man, who Harry recognized as the one who first came up to him, responded. The only word that Harry could catch was "Scar".

The conversation cut off abruptly, and Harry risked a peek around the side of the dumpsters to see what was happening. They had turned to look at the open back gate of the school yard. A small figure was standing there, wearing white clothes with fake cat ears and whiskers. With a jolt, Harry realized that he knew her. He couldn't remember her name, but she was in the year above him in school, and everyone recognized her because her family had a lot of kids.

The girl was looking into the school yard, and Harry wasn't sure what she was thinking as she stared at the hooded, clearly adult figures standing by the swingset. He wanted to warn her, but he was too terrified to speak. She turned, looking like she was about to run off, but one of the strange people lifted pointed a stick that was suddenly in his hand at her and said a word that Harry didn't know. A jet of red light flew from the stick and hit her in the back. She stumbled and fell. She didn't get back up.

"Should I finish her off?" A man's voice asked, sounding bored.

"No," said the man who had grabbed Harry in the street. "Those muggle police will get too curious if more than one disappears tonight. Obliviate her for now. Besides, if the Potter boy is as foolish as his parents we might be able to use her."

More than one? Use her? And what did they know about his parents?

Harry didn't know what he meant, but they did. The tallest of the dark figures went over to the girl and waved his wand over her, then lifted her at arms length like she had some sort of disease and carried her to the others. Once he was there, he let her slump forward, keeping her upright by a hand fisted in her hair.

"Potter!" the first man yelled. "We know that you're here. The girl does not have to be involved in this, but if you do not come out, she will be. You have five minutes before she dies."

Harry froze.

After several seconds of silence the man nodded to one of the others, who pointed his stick at the girl and said something. Her limp body jerked, and Harry could see red spreading across her chest in the dim light.

Harry knew then that he shouldn't have left the house. The real monsters were out here.

What should he do? He couldn't let the girl get hurt anymore because of him, but he didn't even know for sure that they would actually let her go if he went out either; life with the Dursleys had taught him to be wary of adult promises.

What did they want with him?

The man who was holding the girl was taunting him, and Harry squeezed his eyes shut and covered his ears to block out his voice. He couldn't keep hiding, but he was too terrified to draw attention to himself. He was ashamed, but he just couldn't gather the strength to come out.

Harry did not realize it, but the pressure that he could feel building around him was more than just his own stress. His mother's final protection, strong on the anniversary of its casting, was awakening and blending with his own frantically rising power. Harry _did_ know that there seemed to be some strange tension pulling at him, making him feel like he was about to snap. He wanted to scream, but he was paralyzed.

Desperately, he wished that he could be somewhere, _anywhere_ else.

And by the time he opened his eyes again, he was.

…

**31****st ****of Bloodmoon, 1043: Winding Circle Temple**

It was already dark outside, and Moonstream was still finishing up in her office. It had frequently occurred to her in her years as Dedicate Superior that her religious duties were ironically far easier than overseeing the basic functioning of the temple. The stack of reports that she had just finished was in a neat pile on her desk, but the contents were still running through her mind. The grandfather of one of the Pearl dormitory girls was complaining about her being served the same food as the commoner children...the healers were almost out of charmed bandages (she would have to ask Lark)...Skyfire was still paranoid about pirates and wanted her to organize mages to raise the temple defences even more...

But even if her mind wasn't done working, she had at least signed everything that she needed to. Moonstream pushed back her seat, tried to stretch some of the tension out of her shoulders, picked up her lamp and left her office for the night.

In the hallway, she passed several dedicates who greeted her or gave her respectful nods in recognition. She responded cordially to each one despite her tiredness as she made her way to her final task of the night.

In the basement of the Hub was the most sacred part of the whole temple: the God's Chamber. There, statues of the gods lined the wall of the circular room. It was these likenesses that gave the Hub its thrumming power, and it was Moonstream's task to enter it every evening to ask the gods to bless them for the night.

She felt more and more alert as she descended into the Hub. By the time she stopped in front of the heavy iron doors, she could almost feel her magic quivering with excitement within her. The guards outside the Chamber doors stepped aside to let her through.

Moonstream's eyes lifted to Mila's serene face. The Green man stood next to her, somehow looking both beautiful and terrifying at the same time in the light of the candles flickering around the room. She was just about too kneel when a flash of light and a crack temporarily blinded and deafened her.

Even as she subconsciously drew on her power to brace herself for a fight, her thoughts were racing. Nothing like this had ever happened here before. What could it mean?

Slowly, her vision cleared enough for her to see that there was something tucked between Mila and Yanna's statues. At first she thought it was a bundle of clothing, but as she drew closer she got a better look and her breath hitched.

It was a boy, curled up on the floor with his chin on his knees. It was no wonder that she hadn't been able to tell what he was right away; his hair was a dark mess and his clothes were far too big for him. His eyes were shut tight behind his glasses, and his hands were clenched over his ears.

Startled, Moonstream went to him and placed her hand on his shoulder.

Instantly, the boy scrambled back with a cry. His eyes, a bright green that had a searing brightness in his pale face, shot open and stared at her in terror, and then shock and bewilderment.

"Where did you come from? Did you wander off from the dormitories?" she asked, but he wasn't listening. He had shakily gotten to his feet and was now looking frantically around the chamber. Then he froze, and his trembling hand went up to his upper arm. It came away bloody.

She took an instinctive step towards him, and his eyes shot back to her. He pressed himself back up against the wall.

Moonstream wasn't sure of how she should react. It was an offense for anyone but a temple Dedicate to be in the Chamber, but she wasn't sure that the boy even realized that. He didn't seem to be a temple ward either; no child of the temple would be dressed that poorly, except for that infamous boy who almost nine years ago would go barefoot every chance he got. And how had he gotten in past the guards?

She decided to deal with the other problems later. Whatever this boy was doing in this part of the temple, he obviously needed help.

"Just calm down," she told him, using the calm, authoritative tone that she used on the temple children. His face was getting whiter and whiter as she talked, and he was starting to sway on his feet. "If you're hurt, you need to get it–"

Before she could finish, he suddenly toppled over sideways. Moonstream lunged forward and was fortunately able to catch him before his head hit Mila's statue.

It looked like she wasn't done tonight after all...

_Halloween has roots in the Celtic festival of Samhain, when the barriers between this world and the spirit world are at their weakest. _

_TBC_


	2. Chapter 2

**Here's chapter 2. It's kind of fitting that I got this up the day after Halloween**

**I'm going to focus on updating the next chapter of ****Dislocation**** after this, which is going to be a long one.**

**Reviews for chapter 1:**

**Malacoda****: Hmm...I don't think that Niko and Trelawney will end up in the same place in this story, but maybe in my other one :)**

**Hanzo of the Salamander****: Thank you! Hopefully this lives up to your expectations. **

**Soulknight121****: Thanks! Well, Briar will certainly give Harry the most...**_**interesting **_**education...**

**Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters or the books that they came from. They are the creations of JK Rowling and Tamora Pierce. All that is mine is this particular scenario that I am putting them in.**

**...**

**Winding Circle Temple, The Hub**

As Moonstream emerged from the Chamber with the boy in her arms, there was an almost comical moment where the Guards stared at her trying to figure out what had changed. Both of their eyes to the small, limp body at the same time, and the men's jaws dropped.

"Where did he come from?" one of them asked blankly.

"That's what I would like to know," said Moonstream absentmindedly as she shifted her grip.

"We've been standing out here all evening, and the door hasn't been opened for anyone but you," said the other Guard hurriedly. Moonstream realized that he thought she was accusing them of letting the boy in.

"I know that he did not come in past you," she reassured him. She was sure she had been alone in the Chamber when the door had closed behind her. At least, she had been alone until the light had come. Something had happened that the world had never seen before.

Briefly, she wondered what it was about the Summersea temple that seemed to attract so much trouble.

She handed the boy over to the Guard that had spoken first. He looked startled at how little the boy weighed.

"Take him to the Infirmary," she ordered. "I will meet you there later." Then she left ahead of them.

Because thinking back on the boy's reaction to her, Moonstream knew that there was something seriously wrong. They would need someone to calm him down once he woke up before they could get any information from him.

And she knew someone who was perfect for the job...

...

**Little Whinging **

It was mid-morning by the time Arthur Weasley apparated to Surrey. He had never been there before, but he was fortunately able to arrive between two houses, where he was relatively shielded from view. As casually as he could manage, he slipped out onto the sidewalk.

Arthur noticed that he was getting some odd looks from the Muggles on the street, but he eventually dismissed it them realizing that they had never seen him around the neighbourhood before and wondering what he was doing there. After all, he had been careful to disguise himself with Muggle clothing: a kilt with stockings underneath for warmth and an AC/DC sweatshirt.

He smiled at one of the women, who promptly hurried her two small children away.

He had arrived at the Ministry that morning to find things even more hectic than usual. Still, he had gone to his office and tried his best to sort out the talking doorknocker incident. Then the memo had come, requesting all Aurorers and Ministry workers with experience working with muggles to report immediately for an emergency assignment.

If not for the seriousness of the man who had told him to go straight to the on-field base, Arthur would have never been able to keep focused in a muggle neighbourhood; especially during a holiday. It was fascinating to see through the decorations what the muggle concepts of magical creatures were. There were ecklectic things everywhere: the cars, the now-dark street lamps, that little mockery of a glowing gremlin by a house's steps…

Arthur sharply jolted himself into focus.

Following the directions that he had been given, Arthur made it to the base: a vacant muggle primary school yard. Fortunately it was a Saturday, and most of the neighbourhood's children were sleeping late to recover from their late night of trick-or-treating. Arthur walked towards a patch of air in the yard that was shimmering slightly. After a quick glance around, he pulled out his wand and tapped it.

A few seconds later, a sliver of the air split open to the inside of a inside of a large, darker room. A hand reached out through the sliver, and Arthur gave it his Ministry identification badge. The hand retracted briefly, and the gap widened to allow him through.

Once inside, Arthur was almost overwhelmed by the noise. He was in a tent that from the inside was the size of his department space. People were clustered everywhere; getting orders, arguing or just talking. There was a table in the middle of the room with something small and white on it.

"Weasley!" a voice called, and Arthur turned to see a man who had been in the year above him at Hogwarts heading towards him. Robert Fredrickson was both a Muggleborn and an Auror, so it was no surprise to see him here.

Arthur greeted him and then asked what was happening.

"No one told you?" asked Frederickson.

"They told me that I'd be briefed here."

After a quick glance at Arthur's outfit that was both amused and exasperated, Frederickson began to explain

"There was some kind of huge magical disturbance last night. At around eight-o-clock every muggle in a mile radius noticed a flash of light and a cracking sound coming from this spot. When they got here, they found a muggle girl from the area, stupified but not seriously hurt. And they found this."

He led them closer to the table, and Arthur was finally able to what the white object was. Instantly, he recoiled.

"Dumbledore is at the Ministry now," Frederickson told him quietly.

"What happened here?" Arthur breathed, as the empty eye holes of the Death Eater mask stared back at him.

"That's what we'd like to know."

"Is he..." Arthur couldn't even finish it. "Are they..."

"It looks like that some of the ones who managed to buy their way out of Azakaban were having a reunion on the anniversary," said Frederickson. "They dissaparated in a hurry after whatever that flash was started gathering too much attention."

The reminder of the muggle witnesses made something suddenly occur to him.

"How did you cover it up?"

"There were too many witnesses to obliviate," said Fredrickson, "so we managed to convince them that it was a fake UFO display for Halloween."

"UFO?" Arthur asked. He didn't think that he had heard that one before.

"Unidentified Flying Object," Fredrickson explained. "Has to do with Aliens."

"What about the girl?"

"Ministry workers went to the hospital disguised as muggle doctors to wake her up. She didn't remember anything, so we were able to convince her and her family that she was stunned from being too close to the display when it went off"

"I know that Death Eaters appearing is serious matter, but why are there so many Ministry workers here?" Arthur asked, looking around the tent. Even Mad-Eye Moodie was there (although considering his paranoia, maybe that wasn't such a surprise.)

"It's a search party."

"For who, the Death Eaters?"

Fredrickson sighed, looking suddenly worn down. "Early this morning, someone got the idea to check the Ministry records to see if there are any of our kind living in this area. Two came up: a squib and a kid."

"So what's the problem?" Arthur asked.

"The kid is Harry Potter, and apparently, he's been missing since last night."

…

**Winding Circle Temple, The Infirmary**

Harry opened his eyes to a room that was definitely not his cupboard.

Still drowsy, he didn't panic right away. He just looked around at the space that was probably bigger that the whole Dursley house. Harry was lying in a bed against the wall, and it wasn't the only one. After fumbling for his glasses, which were on a small table next to him, Harry could see that there were beds all over the room; some had other people in them. Harry's clothes were folded on the table too, and the material of the loose shirt he had on felt strange to him. There were men and women walking around without paying any attention to him wearing things that looked like straight, plain dresses. The woman from last night had been wearing something like –

Harry's thoughts stopped dead in their tracks, and last night's memories resurged.

The dark-skinned woman – leaving the Dursleys – Trick-or-Treating – the room with the stone people – a man grabbing him in the street – the schoolyard – the-

The girl.

Harry froze, and then suddenly felt like he was going to be sick.

They'd said they would kill her if he didn't come out, and he hadn't. Was she dead? Was it his fault?

Tears were starting to build up in his eyes without him even realizing it, and he sat up with his knees pulled in again. No matter how scared he had been, he never should have just stayed quiet and let someone else get hurt because of him.

"Are you alright?" a voice asked.

Harry jumped and looked around frantically. A woman was standing about five feet away from his bed with a tray in her hands. She was tall, and wearing the same clothes as the other people there, but hers were green. She had golden skin, dark eyes, and black curly hair with a few silver strands mixed in. The woman set down the tray and moved closer.

"Sorry, you were sleeping so deeply I thought it was okay to leave for a moment," she said, but the words came out strange. She moved closer and went to touch his face.

At the sight of her hand coming closer, Harry suddenly remembered the man pushing his hair back from his forehead in the street. Was she with them?

Harry tried to get away and ended up falling off of the bed. Pain shot through his arm, and he pushed back his sleeve to see a bandage wrapped around it between his shoulder and his elbow.

The woman ran around the bed to help him up. He almost tried to get away again, but she was handling him far more gently than the Dursleys or anyone else ever had, and as he tried to get up he realized that he wouldn't get very far. His whole body felt heavy and weak.

He let her help him back into the bed, and for a minute he could only look at her with his head spinning as she adjusted his blankets.

"I'm Dedicate Lark," she told him. "What's your name?"

He didn't answer, which usually would have gotten him in trouble, but Dedicate Lark (wasn't that a kind of bird?) didn't get upset about it. She just looked at him expectantly for a few seconds, and when he stayed silent she sighed and reached for the tray, which had a ceramic cup of water and a bowl with porridge in it.

"Are you hungry?" she asked.

Harry wasn't sure if he should take food from her or if it was a trick, but stomach suddenly reminded him that he hadn't eaten anything since the vegetables that Dudley didn't want at dinner last night. Harry thought from the light coming in the windows that it was afternoon now. Cautiously, he reached for the spoon on the tray.

With her watching, Harry ate. She occasionally made him stop so he wouldn't eat too fast, but she let him have the whole bowl. Once it was done she helped him hold the cup while he drank. Soon, he was lying back down, and she smiled warmly at him.

As nervous and stressed as he was after everything that had happened, something about Dedicate Lark's smile immediately put him at ease. The food and her attention was making him oddly sleepy and content.

"I'm not sure how you got here," she said, "but I know that you must be feeling scared." She reached out to him again, and the second time he held still. Dedicate Lark gently stroked his hair. "Before we can do anything to help you, I need you to tell me what happened, alright?"

Harry nodded stiffly, and very quietly he said, "Okay." She heard him, and gave him another smile.

…

When Moonstream returned to check on the boy, she found Lark sitting next to his bed, staring at his sleeping form. She took the chair next to her.

"How is he?" she asked quietly.

"He's fine," Lark answered without taking her eyes off of him. Her voice was unusually subdued. "He woke up a little while ago, and I talked to him. A healer gave him something to put him back to sleep. His name is Harry."

"That's good," said Moonstream, and the two of them sat in silence for a few minutes.

"Have you heard him speak?" Lark asked suddenly, and Moonstream turned to look at her.

"I beg your pardon?"

"I've travelled all over the continent, and I have never heard an accent like his. I've never heard of the place he says he's from either." The typically unshakable Lark was starting to sound a bit panicky. "I asked him about his family, and he says that he lives with his aunt and uncle. He doesn't know anything about his parents other than the fact that they're dead. I mentioned that I was a mage, and he just looked at me and asked what a mage was!"

By the time Lark finally paused, Moonstream couldn't think of anything to say but "What did you tell him?"

"I just brushed it off. He seemed overwhelmed enough already; I didn't think that he's up to learning about mages."

"Did he say anything about how he came to be here?"

"He doesn't know how he got to the hub; he says that he was outside when he closed his eyes."

"What was he doing?"

"Running from people who knew his name and, from what it sounded like, were trying to kill or kidnap him."

To say that Moonstream was surprised by this would have been an understatement. Lark was still looking at the boy.

She was saved from having to answer by the arrival of a brown-haired, brown-eyed young man wearing healers robes. He seemed startled by his patient's newest guest, but he recovered quickly and checked the boy's – Harry's – breathing and pulse

"It's Dedicate Aspen, I believe?" said Moonstream, and when the man nodded she asked, "You are the Healer responsible for him?"

"Yes, Dedicate Superior," he answered.

"What can you tell me about his condition?"

Moonstream had had enough experience with the temple healers to know that they sometimes got defensive if they thought anyone was trying to interfere with their patients, but Aspen didn't seem to mind. He immediately began to explain.

"Aside from the cut on his arm and some bruises, he doesn't seem to be hurt. The his arm didn't seem bad enough to expose him to Healer magic, so Dedicate Rosethorn came in earlier to treat it."

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Lark smile slightly with her eyes still fixed on Harry. Moonstream knew then exactly who had gotten Rosethorn to come. She looked back at Aspen, who seemed to be hesitating slightly

"What is it?" she asked.

"Is just…" he said, uncertainly, and then made up his mind. "I've never seen an injury like that before. It's really more like a burn than a cut, but a burn wouldn't have bled."

"Could it have been a friction burn then?" Moonstream asked.

"Maybe, but it doesn't seem quite right for that," he told her.

"Rosethorn didn't know what it was either," said Lark.

They all looked at the bandage that came out from under the boy's sleeve, and then Aspen sighed and decided to continue.

"The only other health concern that I am aware of for him is his weight. He's undersized for a five-year-old."

Lark finally took her eyes off of Harry to look at Aspen and Moonstream. "He told me that he's six."

"Six!" the Healer exclaimed, and Harry flinched in his sleep. Moonstream, Lark, and the other Healers in the infirmary shushed him.

"Moonstream…" said Lark. "Even if we _can_ figure out a way to get him home, I'm not sure that we should."

...

Even drugged, Harry was still enough of a light sleeper to be woken up by Aspen's yell. But it was not enough to completely rouse him, and he was sinking back into oblivion when he heard the voices. One was Dedicate Lark, and the other two sounded familiar. Sleepily, he wondered if it even mattered who the voices belonged to, but then his own name caught his attention and he struggled to listen.

"...seemed almost scared when I talked about letting his family know where he is," Dedicate Lark was saying.

Harry pretended that he was still asleep. He wasn't really sure why, but he didn't want them to know he was listening.

"If he isn't going back to his family, what are you planning on doing with him?" said a voice that Harry recognized as the man who had given him the funny-tasting drink, "are you going to put him in the dormitories?"

Harry was frozen, hardly breathing. Not go back to the Dursleys?

"No," said the other voice, and Harry realized that it was the dark-skinned woman from last night. "We don't even know how he got here. We need to watch him more closely than we would be able to there. Besides, he seems like he has been through a lot. A family environment would probably be best for him."

"So you're going to find a family to adopt him?"

The woman sighed. "It's not that simple. If there really are people who are looking for him, then he will need to be with someone who can protect him."

"We have an extra room," offered Dedicate Lark, and Harry perked up. Dedicate Lark seemed nice.

"Thank you, Lark," said the woman, "but I want to keep your house reserved for mage children, and from what I can tell he isn't one."

Harry felt his heart sinking. If they weren't going to take him here, then where was he going to go? Even if he did figure out how to get back to the Dursleys, they would be furious with him. They had to know that he had left the house by now.

"Then do you have anyone else in mind, Moonstream?" Dedicate Lark asked.

_Moonstream_, Harry thought. He didn't think that the Dursleys would have approved of a name like that, but he liked it.

"Yes."

"Who?"

Moonstream gave a small laugh. "You and Rosethorn should know better than anyone who I'm thinking of."

Dedicate Lark was silent for a moment, then gasped.

"Do you think that they would?" Moonstream asked.

"Yes," said Dedicate Lark, sounding slightly breathless. "Yes, if you approached it right…"

"That's where I'll need your advice," Moonstream told her.

"Wait a moment," the brown-haired man interrupted. "You can't seriously be thinking of…"

"What's wrong with them?" Dedicate Lark asked, her tone slightly more chilly.

"No offence to you and Rosethorn, Lark," the man said hurriedly, "but they have a lot of other problems to deal with already. It's almost impossible to control power like that _all_ of the time, and the boy might get hurt. As soon as people find out that he's living with them, everyone will be watching him. And even if they _are_ willing to take him in, do they even know _how_ to take care of a child? Have you considered that you might be biased in this?"

"I tested their control myself when I agreed that they should receive their medallions," said Moonstream, "and I did not find them lacking."

"Tris took care of Glaki for more than three years, and Glaki adores her," Dedicate Lark added. "And as for him being watched, don't you think that he would have to deal with that if he stayed here too? Mila, the boy appeared out of thin air in the God's Chamber!"

Harry wasn't entirely sure what was happening at this point, but it seemed that they knew people who might let him live with them. The man thought that they wouldn't want him, or were dangerous or something, but it sounded like Dedicate Lark knew them better, and she thought that they were okay. Harry had gotten the sense that she didn't like what he had told her about the Dursleys. It sounded like she did like whoever they were talking about, so did that mean that they were nicer than the Dursleys?

Dedicate Lark and Moonstream left, deciding that they should include 'Rosethorn' in the conversation. Harry tried to stay awake, but the sleeping draught was pulling him back down again, and soon he had drifted back into unconsciousness.

_TBC_

**...**

**The Circle will be in the next chapter.**

**Tip: reviews motivate me to write :)**


	3. Chapter 3

**On a completely irrelevant note, I HAVE A NEW BABY BROTHER! :D**

**More relevant: I am reaaally sorry about how long this took :(. I got busy with stuff, and then since I was busy and didn't get much done on it for a while I got a bit of writers block trying to get it done. It also doesn't help that this chapter is more than double the length that I expected it to be...**

**If there is anyone that is still reading this story, please enjoy. **

**Oh, and if the wording of things seems childish, keep in mind that I'm writing from the perspective of a six year old. I couldn't have him thinking words that he doesn't know. **

**Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters or the books that they came from. They are the creations of JK Rowling and Tamora Pierce. All that is mine is this particular scenario that I am putting them in.**

…

Most of the remaining hope (or fear) that Harry had of things going back to normal was pretty much crushed by his first real day in Emelan.

He'd woken up that morning in the infirmary feeling still sort of dizzy, but better enough to walk around. Moonstream came to visit him, and he sat on his bed and tried to pretend that he hadn't been listening to her and Dedicate Lark talk the day before when she told him that they'd found some people he could stay with. He got changed back into Dudley's old clothes quickly when they told him to, and ate the food they gave him for breakfast quietly.

As soon as two of the people in robes – who he had been told were called Healers and had been really, really nice to him – led Harry outside he started squirming uncomfortably. He was too hot. He struggled with the oversized sweater, flinching a bit when the movement hurt his bandaged arm. Once he had it off, he froze.

This was definitely nowhere near Privet Drive.

No part of Privet Drive would have had dirt paths, especially not ones that criss-crossed through each other like that (it took Harry a while to realize that the bigger roads he could see were actually one long one, looping around and around). Most of the buildings didn't really look much like each other, with some being big or small or cozy or imposing, and right in the middle of everything was a giant tower with a clock on it. There were trees and flowers that Harry was sure had never been in Aunt Petunia's garden. Everything seemed brighter, more alive.

And surrounding everything that Harry could see was a huge wall.

There were people walking around. Mostly it was adults with the same kind of clothes that the Healers had, but in different colours, going between some of the big, spread-out buildings. There were a few teenagers dressed in white too. One group was standing near the path, watching him and talking quietly. Moonstream was with them.

She came closer and smiled at him before turning to the two Healers and asking, "Are you sure he's well enough to travel?"

One of them, a woman with blonde hair, nodded. "Apart from his arm, we couldn't even find anything really wrong with him. It was probably just exhaustion and stress. As long as you don't do too much with him, he'll be fine."

Harry _was _feeling much less tired and sick than he had felt before, but he still wasn't sure that he agreed with her.

"Moonstream!" a gruff voice snapped loudly. Harry jumped and looked around. There was a man marching over to them with red clothes and red hair that was turning grey, and he looked angry. Moonstream walked quickly to meet him, and led him a little farther away from Harry. The Healers and the other people around the path turned to watch them.

They looked like they were arguing, but they were being really quiet, and the man kept looking back over at him. Harry tried to shift a little closer to hear, being careful not to stare at them.

Luckily for him, the argument was getting a bit louder. Harry was finally able to catch the man say "–serious breach of security. Did anyone even _ask _how he got inside the Hub? There isn't even any record of him being inside the temple a few days ago."

"Of course we asked," Moonstream told him, looking a bit annoyed. "He said he couldn't remember, and Lark told me that _he _seemed more confused than we were. Honestly, Skyfire, does he _look _like a threat to you?"

"I'm just saying that you shouldn't be leaving him unsupervised like this."

"He won't be _unsupervised_. You saw how those four acted during the pirate attack, and they were just children then. They're more than capable of…"

They got quieter again, and Harry couldn't hear the rest.

Skyfire? he thought feeling bewildered. 'Those four'? Capable of _what_?

_Pirate? _

"Hey, kid!" a voice hissed. Harry looked around to see a boy with brown hair peering around the edge of one of the buildings. He was older – maybe ten or even eleven. He stuck his head out farther and grinned when Harry uncertainly moved closer.

The boy gestured towards the adults, letting Harry see a sleeve that that was different from what everyone else was wearing. "What did you do?"

"What?" Harry asked, bewildered.

The boy rolled his eyes. "Don't play dumb. If you got all of _them_ out here" – he waved at the grown-ups again – "you've gotta be in trouble for _something."_

Suddenly, Harry felt twice as nervous. _Was_ he in trouble? Was that why everyone was paying so much attention to him? They hadn't seemed angry with him so far, except for the man in red, and he didn't think that he'd done anything really bad...

Not since he'd woken up here, anyway. Just before he'd gotten to…wherever this was, he'd snuck out of the Dursley's house when they had told him to stay there. He'd gone out and gotten candy that he never would have been allowed to have, and when the people that had been chasing him had said that they were going to hurt that girl from his school if he didn't come out…

The girl was something else that Harry had been trying hard not to think about, but he felt bad for it. He shouldn't stop thinking about her, because if something bad had happened to her, it was his fault.

The boy was still waiting for an answer, and he looked impatient.

"I didn't do anything," Harry told him, wishing that it were true. The words didn't sound nearly as tough as he had wanted them to.

The boy's forehead wrinkled. "Why are you talking like that?"

"Talking like what?" Harry said, a bit defensively.

"I dunno, just...the words sound funny." He tilted his head a bit. "Where are you from?"

Harry wanted to tell the boy that he was the one that talked funny. He wanted to tell him that he wasn't in trouble and to mind his own business, but he couldn't. The boy was talking like everyone else here, and Harry didn't really know much more than he did, and _he _was the one that didn't fit here...

Suddenly, the boy glanced over Harry's head and then ducked out of sight. Harry turned to see Moonstream headed back towards them.

Apparently, the boy hadn't ducked quickly enough. When Moonstream got to him, she said, "I see you've met one of our wards." She sighed. "I'm fairly sure that he's supposed to be in classes now, I'll have a word with the head of his dorm later."

The red man that she had been talking to was still standing near where she'd left him. He was watching them, and still didn't look happy, but he wasn't coming up to them again.

"Now then," Moonstream began, and Harry turned back to her. "Are you ready to go?"

No, he wanted to say. Instead, he nodded.

She led him out towards the wall, with the other people around watching them go.

"Er…" Harry started quietly, after they'd walked for a minute. He wasn't sure if asking was a good idea, but when Moonstream turned to look at him he knew he had to keep going. "Is…is Dedicate Lark going to come?"

Moonstream shook her head, but she didn't look annoyed with him for asking. She smiled a little. "Lark was going to come, but there was…a bit of an incident involving one of the young people she takes care of, and she had to sort things out."

Harry couldn't help feeling disappointed. He knew that Lark didn't really have any reason to do anything for him, but she was nice, and he would have felt a lot better having her there.

Looking at the wall and lost in thought, Harry didn't even notice the horse until he walked right into it.

Harry stumbled backwards and fell over. He heard people laughing quietly, and a snort, and then a big brown shape reached down in front of him.

Stunned, Harry looked up to see that there wasn't just a _horse_ standing there, there were _three _horses. The one that he'd walked into was staring at him curiously, sniffing at his chest.

Harry didn't move. All he could do was stay where he was, his eyes huge, his glasses knocked out of place, and his sweater clutched near his side. He had never seen an animal bigger than Aunt Marge's dog Ripper up close before, and after meeting Ripper, Harry hadn't _wanted_ to see anything bigger.

Harry only really noticed the two men (wearing red too) when one grabbed onto the rope that hung from something in the horse's mouth to pull it away, and the other reached down to him. Harry stared at the man's hands blankly, not quite sure what he wanted until he grabbed Harry's hand and helped lift him to his feet.

"Since no one is ever satisfied with letting me leave here unprotected," Moonstream explained, "these two will be coming along as guards."

Moonstream and one of the men climbed onto two of the horses. The other lifted Harry (who was still in too much shock to really do anything about it) up onto the third with him.

"Ever been on a horse before?" the man asked as he tried to get Harry seated in front of him.

Harry managed to shake his head.

"Don't worry about it," the guard told him. "I've got you."

_I've got you_. No one had ever said that to Harry in this way before, but it felt nice.

That feeling lasted until they went through the big gate.

Harry wasn't even aware of his breathing rate picking up, or that his heart was pounding in his chest, or that he was shaking

Harry had grown up in a suburb, with rows upon rows of nearly identical houses all neatly lined up. To him, the long road and open field between the temple and Summersea was like _nothing_, just a big, empty space. A distant crash had made him look to his left, and all that he could see there was water. Nothing like the little garden ponds if Privet Drive, or even like the river that he'd seen once on a school trip, _this_ seemed endless, stretching out until it simply disappeared over the horizon.

In that moment, Harry wanted more than anything to be back in his cupboard at the Dursley house. Because it wasn't until then that he started to understand just how far away it was.

No matter how terrible the Dursleys were, adventures are always more fun when there's a way back to what you know.

"Harry!" a voice shouted, and he looked around to see that all three of the adults were staring at him. Moonstream turned her horse around and moved in closer.

"What is it?" she asked, reaching out to touch his forehead. "Maybe you aren't well enough to leave yet, after all."

That got Harry's attention, and he forced himself to take a deep breath. He was causing enough trouble for them as it was.

"I'm okay," he whispered. Moonstream didn't look so sure, but then she thought for a moment and let it go.

Now that he was calmer, he could make out the dim shapes of houses far off in the distance, and maybe another wall. So this place wasn't really empty.

Then the two men and Moonstream got the horses moving, and they soon were heading down the road into Summersea.

Harry didn't like the way that the horse rocked at first, but after a while he stopped noticing it. The first buildings that they reached were tiny houses next to the water. They kept moving past those, but Harry could see people off in the distance in boats by the waves, dragging nets over the sides. Something about it made Harry feel like he wouldn't mind so much if he was being taken there, but the next place that they went through didn't look so good. Whatever houses there were there looked like they were about to fall apart, and the people that watched them go by didn't look much better. They were dirty, thin, and their clothes (women in dresses, men in trousers and shirts), were patched and worn. They kept going through there (much to Harry's relief), and soon they were passing through another gate.

As soon as they got through, things looked better. People in the streets seemed to know who Dedicate Moonstream was, and many looked surprised to see her. Some stopped them to talk to her, asking about people and things that Harry had never heard off. All of them looked at Harry curiously. Three people asked about who he was or why he was with them, but all that Moonstream would tell them was that it was "Temple Business."

As nervous as he was, Harry was craning his head around as they went, trying to take in everything around him. He almost forgot where they were going until they stopped.

"This is it," Moonstream called back to him.

Harry instinctively shrank back against the guard he was riding with. The man reached up and ruffled Harry's hair reassuringly.

Harry stared at the house. It was big, probably double the size of the Dursley's house. The others on the street were big too. After that, the only thing that Harry could pay attention to was the garden.

Even though the other flowers that he's seen so far were wilting, these ones were still in full bloom. Instead of being in neat little rows, they filled all of the space in the dirt. Ivy was climbing up the side of the house, and a tree with bright red apples sat about halfway down the grass.

What would he do if the people here didn't want him? he thought suddenly. He didn't know how to get back to Private Drive, and even if he did know, the Dursleys might not _let_ him come back. Did they have orphanages here?

Moonstream got off of her own horse as Harry was lifted down and set on the ground. Harry stumbled a little; being on the horse had made him feel stiff and sore. She turned to look at him and the men moved back to give them some privacy. Harry tried to keep from fidgeting, but couldn't help twisting his sweater (which he'd managed to hold on to for the entire horse ride) in his hands.

"You will do fine here," she began, her voice quiet, "but I cannot in good conscience leave you here without giving you fair warning. These people are…" she hesitated, "very unusual. They are very well known in this city, and many people are frightened by them. But I can tell you now that you need not be. I have known them since they were children, and I know that they would not do anything to harm you. If I doubted that, I would not have brought you to them."

She paused for a moment, like she was thinking of what to say next, and Harry loosened his grip on his sweater.

"They can, and will, do things that you have never seen before. I do not know anything about the people that you were running from, but you will be protected here. They are more powerful than anyone else that I know, possibly more powerful than they themselves realize."

"You should also be prepared that they might not all agree to take you in right away," she went on, but before Harry really got a chance to start panicking again she kept talking. "They _will _let you stay here, so you don't have anything to worry about, but this will be unexpected for them. Just know that you may have to be patient, but you can trust them."

For another moment, she just looked at him, before quietly adding, "And I am not entirely sure what kind of people family are, but from what you've said of them so far, I do know that you will be much better off."

She put her hand on his shoulder, and then turned and headed towards the door of the house. Harry stayed where he was. He wasn't sure what she meant by "better off", but the way that he was shaking now felt very different from before, and there was a lump in his throat.

Harry looked back at his guard uncertainly. The man stayed where he was, but smiled and waved him in Moonstream's direction. Harry followed after her.

They both stopped on the doorstep.

From there, they could hear someone – no, two people – inside the house yelling. Harry looked worriedly at Moonstream, but she just knocked on the door anyway. Not really expecting that the people they'd be noticed for a while, Harry tried to figure out what they were saying.

"-second time this week she's broken something in there!" a man was saying.

"She doesn't know any better!" That one was a woman.

"Well, if you can't teach her, maybe you should keep her in your room."

"Maybe _you _should just start shutting the window in your workroom!"

"I _told _you, the _shakkans_ want air from outside-"

The door was jerked open, and Harry nerves were so bad at that point that it was almost enough to make him fall over in surprise. The woman that opened it definitely didn't look like anyone he had ever seen on Privet Drive. Her skin was like Dedicate Moonstream's and her black hair was all in tiny braids with metal beads on the ends. Unlike the other women that he had seen on the streets, she was wearing trousers and a shirt instead of a dress. Her clothes were dirty, with odd black smudges on them. She was an adult, and seemed really big, but she still looked young, much younger than he had been expecting. She looked tired too, and really happy to see Moonstream.

"I've been trying to figure out how to make them stop," she said, waving her hand a little back inside the house. The people inside were still yelling. "Come on in."

As she moved her other hand off of the door, Harry briefly saw something gold-coloured in the light. He didn't get a chance to see what it was before Dedicate Moonstream followed her into the house. After taking a deep breath, Harry hurried after them.

"Cut it out you two," the one that had let them in called. "We have guests."

The two people arguing were a man with light-brown skin and black hair, and a woman with red hair that had even more braids in it and glasses. They both looked young too. As soon as the woman saw Moonstream she stopped yelling right away, and her face went almost as red as her hair.

Harry watched her apprehensively – it never ended well when Uncle Vernon's face changed colours – but all she did was mumble something before quickly disappearing into the house.

"Is Sandry here?" asked Dedicate Moonstream, who didn't seem to find anything strange about the whole situation.

"Upstairs. She's getting changed out of her Court clothes," said the man as he watched the red-haired woman leave. He looked like he was trying not to laugh. "She'll be down in a minute."

"Come sit down," the one that had let them in the house said. She and the man waited for a few seconds, looking at Harry curiously, but then walked down the hallway that the other woman had gone through. The Moonstream went after them and Harry ended up following a few steps behind again.

They kept walking though the hallways a while before pausing near a staircase. For a moment harry thought that they were going to go upstairs, but instead they turned through a doorway that was straight across from the steps.

The room that they were in now had two sofas in the middle, with one on either side of a low table. There were armchairs in the corners, and an unlit fireplace against one wall. Along the windowsills and mantle were even more plants in pots, and instead of photographs, hanging around the room in frames were pictures stitched into cloth. Harry's noticed that the picture of a cottage with a garden out front that was hanging above the fireplace had the clock tower from the temple in it.

"Have a seat wherever you'd like," the woman told them, and Moonstream sat down on the sofa that faced away from the door. She motioned for him to sit next to her, and he hurried over. The man flopped down on the other couch, and the woman stayed standing, leaning back against the wall.

After a minute, the one with red braids came back, carrying a tray with cookies, cups and a pitcher. Her face looked more or less normal-coloured again, and as she set the tray on the table Harry could see that she had freckles.

When she saw that Moonstream was looking at the pitcher, she said, "It's just cider."

"I should hope so," Moonstream told her sternly. "And I trust that you four haven't been drinking since the barn incident."

This time, all three of them blushed a bit.

"No one is ever going to let that go, are they?" the man muttered. "Come on, we were thirteen!"

The staircase behind Harry creaked. Moonstream looked over the back of their couch and smiled. "Hello, Sandrilene."

Harry turned around in his seat. There was a woman standing on the bottom step. She was wearing a blue and white dress, and her dark blond hair was tied back in a single braid. She was very pretty, and she smiled back at the woman as she came off of the step and moved closer.

"It's good to see you, Moonstream," she answered as she sat next to the man. She glanced over at Harry (her eyes were blue too, a much nicer blue than Dudley's) and did a slight double take. Her smile dropped and her lips tightened as she looked him over.

Harry's nerves shot right back up as he suddenly became very conscious about how he must look. The Dursley's always complained about how messy his hair and clothes were. It was even worse now. The temple people hadn't tried to battle his hair like Aunt Petunia always did, and he could feel it sticking up even more than usual. His clothes, as big on him as ever, had been washed, but the sleeve of his shirt was still torn and stained from when he had been cut the other night. He wished that Dedicate Moonstream had let him wear the clothes that he had had on at the temple. If they already thought that he didn't look good enough…

He shifted uncomfortably, turning slightly in an attempt to hide his ruined sleeve from her. The woman noticed, and quickly looked back at his face and smiled at him. Not really sure how to respond, Harry just looked down at the floor. She looked away from him when the red-haired woman came back into the room carrying a tray. As soon as she stopped paying attention to him, he reached up and tried to squash his hair down.

The others had started talking with Moonstream. He couldn't understand most of it, but it sounded like they were talking about people. Some he knew, like Lark, and that Skyfire man, but they were saying names like Rosethorn, and Frostpine, and Niko and Crane, and didn't _anyone_ have normal names here (he liked most of them, but still)?

Just sitting there and listening to all of that was making Harry feel more uncomfortable, but he tried his best to stay still and quiet.

But really, it was probably for the best that he was so anxious that he wasn't feeling well. If he wasn't, then he would have really wanted some of the cookies sitting on the tray, and he didn't know if he was allowed to have any.

Finally, Moonstream asked about someone called Chime.

"Chime's doing very well," the red haired woman answered. "We still don't know if it's even possible for her to get sick or break. She's upstairs sleeping right now," – here the man glared at her for some reason – "but I can bring her down if you want to see her."

"No," the older woman said, looking briefly at Harry. "I think it best would be if Chime does not join us quite yet."

Moonstream's quick glance had drawn their attention back to him, and he ducked his head a bit when they all looked over too.

"What are you doing here?" the red-haired woman asked Moonstream. "You've never come to see us here before."

"Tris!" the woman that had been looking at Harry's clothes (Sand…something?) scolded instantly.

"Actually, I'm wondering that too," the man said. He gestured at Harry. "And what's the kid doing here?"

"In all honesty," said Moonstream, sitting up straighter, "'the kid' is the reason that I came.

They all looked at each other for a few seconds, and then the man asked, "What do you mean?"

This was it, Harry thought.

"Harry came into our care...unexpectedly," Moonstream told them. "We found him at the temple, at we still aren't quite sure where he came from, or how to contact his family."

Then she told them a bit of what he'd told Lark. That he'd been alone in his house, left to go outside, and had met someone that seemed to know who he was. That he'd ran and hid while they'd tried to make him come out.

She didn't say anything about Halloween, or about them seeming to know his dead parents instead of him, or much about the Dursley's really.

She didn't say anything about the girl, either, but Harry hadn't even been able to tell Lark about the girl.

When she was done talking, the four of them stayed quiet, glancing between Harry and each other.

"Harry," Moonstream said, turning to him, "I would like you to meet Lady Sandrilene Fa Toren" – the blue eyed woman sitting on the couch smiled at him again – "Trisana Chandler" – the other woman on the couch suddenly looked annoyed at something, but nodded slightly – "Daja Kisubo" – the dark-skinned one lifted her hand – "and Briar Moss".

The man, who must have been Briar, barely looked at Harry. He was still watching Moonstream.

"Thanks for sharing," he said, "and we'll be on the lookout for...whoever these people are, but why exactly are you telling us this?"

Moonstream, who had picked up her cup to take a sip, placed it back down on the table before speaking.

"For the time being, we feel that it is best to find Harry somewhere to stay. Since we are not sure if he is still in danger, we cannot foster him off to a normal family, and for various reasons we feel that Winding Circle is not the right place for him."

They were all quiet again, but this time it was a different kind of quiet. This time, they _got _it.

"Wait," Briar said, sitting up straight. "You expect us to just take him in? Just like that?"

"Yes, I do," Moonstream told him. "Just as the Gods and Winding Circle Temple did for you four."

Briar shifted and looked a bit guilty, but he kept going. "You said yourself that you have no idea where he came from. How do you even know that his own family is so out of reach?"

Moonstream just looked at him, and then over at Harry.

"Trust me," she said, "we _know._"

Harry's heart was sinking, and he stared down at his sweater in his lap. It didn't sound like the man wanted him here.

"And why are–"

"Briar."

It was the one with red hair. He thought Moonstream had called her 'Trisana'

"What?" Briar asked. He was looking at her, and she was looking at Harry.

"Be quiet for a minute"

Briar choked. Trisana shifted on the couch until she was straight across from Harry.

"What's your name?"

"Harry," he whispered.

"How did you end up at the temple?" she asked.

Harry thought back, struggling not to cry when he remembered the gap. Being in the dark schoolyard one moment and in the room with the silent stone faces the next.

"I don't remember," he whispered.

Briar spoke up again. "What kind of accent is _that?_"

Daja frowned. "I haven't heard that one before either."

Harry's stomach clenched. Should he not have talked?

"Oh, shush," said Sandrilene. She looked at Harry and smiled again. "Whatever it is, I think it's cute."

Most six-year-old boys wouldn't have liked being called _cute_, but it made Harry feel a bit better. Cute was good, right?

Trisana didn't pay much attention to the others. She was still looking at him thoughtfully.

"Do you remember anything about the people that were chasing you?" she asked.

Harry thought for a moment, and then said, "They were wearing masks". Masks weren't that strange on Halloween, but it was all he could think of right then.

She glanced back at the others and didn't talk for a few seconds. They all looked like they were thinking, but none of them said anything.

"How far away are you from," she went on. "Do you think that your parents might look for you around Summersea?"

"My parents are dead," Harry said right away, surprised at the thought of them looking for him. Then he found himself wondering why they all seemed surprised too. Even Briar had a strange look on his face.

"Do you...mean that the people with masks killed them?" Trisana asked. Her voice sounded strange too.

_Oh, _Harry thought. They were just confused about what he'd meant. He should have said it better. "They died a long time ago," he explained. That did make them seem to relax a bit, but they looked even more confused.

"Who do you live with now, then?" asked Daja.

"My aunt and uncle," he said. Then he remembered what he'd actually been asked in the first place and added, "but I don't think that they're looking for me."

It wasn't until he saw Trisana go very still and the other three start to look worried again that it occurred to him that he shouldn't have told them that.

Now, he realized, he was going to be asked _why_ his aunt and uncle wouldn't be looking for him, and then he'd have to tell them all the reasons that the Dursleys didn't want him in their house, and of _course _they wouldn't want him here then...

"If you could," Trisana said quietly, and Harry braced himself, "would you want to go back to your Aunt and Uncle?"

The question was so different from what Harry had been expecting that his brain seemed to stop working for a little while. Then it took another while to make sense of what she'd said.

Once he'd figured it out, Harry almost said yes right away. He didn't really like the Dursleys, but they were what he knew, and what he had. Even if they were never nice to him, he had never felt scared the way he'd been scared when he saw what was outside the temple with them before. But before he answered, he stopped, because for some reason he noticed then that her eyes were grey like a thundercloud, not blue or green like he'd thought, and once he noticed her eyes he noticed the way that she was looking at him.

The Dursley's never really looked at him much, and when they did it was usually glaring or sneering. The kids in his school either ignored him or were Dudley's friends and looked at him like the Dursley's did. Teachers usually seemed either disapproving or sad. And then there were the people that he sometimes saw when the Dursleys took him out somewhere. People that for just an instant would be standing somewhere in funny clothes and looking at him like they'd never seen a kid before, but then would seem to disappear as soon as he could blink. But this woman was staring at him without looking away from his face. He didn't see any of the usual things in hers, just a complete focus, like whatever he did or said in that moment was all that mattered. Harry realized then that if his answer was really that important to her, then he needed to take it seriously too. He thought harder.

For years, the Dursleys had told him how lucky he was that they had taken him in, how much easier things would have been for them if they had just taken him to the orphanage when he'd turned up on their door. He knew that he was being ungrateful, but ever since he'd started school and seen what other families were like he had wanted something, some_one_, else.

Whenever he'd imagined leaving the Dursleys, he had always pictured someone who had wanted him enough to come for him themselves. Now, it looked he was finally away from the Dursleys, but he was just being dumped these people too. They had even less reason to take him than his Aunt and Uncle did.

She was still watching him, waiting silently for an answer.

Whatever he should have said, it seemed impossible for him to lie with those stormy eyes focused on him. He gave a whispered "No" and hoped that it wouldn't make them think he was bad.

Trisana kept looking at him, but something in her gaze changed. Somehow, Harry felt like she knew exactly what he was thinking, and she didn't look angry at all.

"And do you want to stay here?" she asked next.

_Did _he want to stay here?

Harry blinked. He had concentrated so much about what could happen if they _didn't _let him stay here that he'd forgotten to think about what might happen if they did.

He liked the garden, and the pictures on the wall, and that the house stood out, but none of that was probably the important part.

None of them had really said that they wanted him here yet, although it looked like Briar maybe didn't. The woman that had called him _cute_ seemed to like him, but he wasn't sure about the others.

Still, he needed to stay _somewhere_, and so far they seemed alright. From what Moonstream had said, and some of what he'd seen of them so far, he got the feeling that the Dursley's wouldn't really approve.

Maybe that wasn't a bad thing, though.

Even if he wasn't sure if they liked him, at least they didn't seem to _dis_like him. Even Briar hadn't actually said anything bad about Harry himself. And even if the way that Sandrilene had smiled and Trisana was talking to him made him uncomfortable, he still thought that _he _liked it.

Then he looked over at Moonstream, and he remembered her telling him that it would be okay.

"Yes"

She didn't say anything, she watched him again for a few more seconds, and then gave a tiny nod and moved back to her seat

"Well, Tris is in," Daja said. Harry blinked and looked at her, not quite sure what was going on.

"And you?" Moonstream asked. "It's your house"

She shrugged. "I don't mind as long as he stays out of my workroom."

"Sandry?"

"Of course he can stay!" the woman in blue cried, so excited that Harry couldn't really do anything but stare at her blankly, his mind still trying to catch up to what was happening.

"You don't even live here!" Briar yelled, but Harry thought it looked like he was starting to give up a little.

"She might as well, for all the time that she spends here," Trisana muttered. "Besides, you know that she's just as involved if she lives here or not."

Briar rolled his eyes, but didn't argue.

"I can make him new clothes, too," Sandry added happily.

Briar looked at Moostream accusingly. "You dressed him like that on purpose, didn't you? You knew that it would bother her."

"Don't be ridiculous. This is what he was wearing when I found him," Moonstream replied. She still seemed dignified, but Harry didn't really feel sure that she was completely telling the truth.

Briar took a deep breath, and Harry could suddenly see in the man's green eyes that something was wrong.

"I know that you talked to Rosethorn about Yanjing. Do you really think that I'm in any state to look after a kid right now?"

Something in the room changed. The women were all still looking at Briar, but now it was...softer. After becoming a little more used to them, Harry would eventually realize that that look meant that they had still been fully intending on getting their way, but were now being a bit more understanding, and were probably going to have a talk about it later.

At the time, all that Harry picked up on was that Briar had probably said something important, but it wasn't important enough, because Moonstream kept talking.

"You don't have to 'look after' him. The girls seem more than willing to care for him. All you have to do is let him stay. And Briar?"

"What?" he asked, looking a bit suspicious again.

"I _have _talked to Rosethorn, and she has instructed me to tell you that if you are stubborn about allowing Harry to stay here, then you can explain your concerns to her personally."

Sandry gave a startled laugh. Tris gave the man a triumphant look. Daja raised her eyebrows and watched with interest as Briar's eyes widened and his face paled.

"The kid can stay," he said hurriedly, and Sandrilene laughed again.

_TBC_

**If Harry seems timid to the point of being OOC in this chapter, keep in mind that he's not really in the best mental state right now. I think that if he had been introduced to Emelan better prepared, he would have been excited about having an adventure. However, he arrived via a traumatizing experience and has no idea what's happening. Plus, my 3½ year-old sister has taught me that there is a direct correlation between a child's level of tiredness and her/his mental stability, and Harry is still pretty drained. **

**Also, Harry is so unsure/shy because most of what he has been told about the world and himself has come from the Dursley's. I think that he didn't really start getting rebellious until he got a bit older and he became more aware of how other families worked and more resigned to the fact that the Dursley's are just horrible, horrible people. I can see him at this age still trying to please.**

**Reviews:**

**...**

**...**

**o.O**

**This could take a while ...**

**soulknight121: Not quite the reactions I went for (nailed Sandry though), but next chapter is going to have some circle!pov, so you can see a bit more of my reasoning then. :) **

**IDreamOfDistantSeas: Here you go :D**

**Malacoda: There's a lot of things that Tris is going to have interesting reactions to. And Sandry. Sandry will be fun. **

**Hanzo of the Salamander: ...Sorry for making you wait 3**

**Jerichan: Thank you! And there can never be too many Circle of Magic crossovers...**

**Kila9Nishika: *feels guilty all over again for hiatus***

**the fifth marauder: Hope the meeting was satisfactory. If not, there is more to come...**

**Avatar of Wurms: Well...at least you not alerting me meant that you had slightly less time to wait for an update. And it's always cool to recognize someone from my other story :D**

**And the adult Harry thing...I could easily see him turning out to be a bit of both options **

**CrazyDyslexicNerd: Here's another chapter. I'm really sorry about the wait, and I hope that this lived up to the beginning.**

**The Blasphemous Contessa: Here it is. Probably not as speedily as either of us would have liked...**

**MissBliss8527: The Lasagna thing is always appreciated ;)**

**Wolfspeaker01: It might get more intense, but I promise to distribute the drama properly, and that there will be not-so-intense stuff too. And I have plans for the magic thing...(resists random urge to insert maniacal laugh for some reason).**

**Sorry if I missed anyone.  
**

**I really need to start PMing people instead of waiting until the chapters are posted...**

**...**

***Huggles readers***


	4. Chapter 4

**Well, less than six months between updates. That's a step in the right direction, I guess**

**Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters or the books that they came from. They are the creations of JK Rowling and Tamora Pierce. All that is mine is this particular scenario that I am putting them in.**

…**..**

The Burrow

It was very early in the morning by the time that Arthur got home.

He came in and took his shoes off as quietly as he could. Most of the kids were still sharing rooms, and if one of them woke up it usually meant that they would all be up in a matter of minutes. They really needed to build more onto the house...

Despite his best efforts, he heard footsteps on the stairs and in the hall before he had even put his shoes away. But it was only Molly, peering through the dark kitchen at him.

Of course Molly had heard him come in. Even if she hadn't been waiting up, she'd slept as light as a feather ever since Bill was born. He managed a smile for her, and then sat down at the table

"Did you find..." Molly began, but Arthur shook his head.

"Nothing," he told her. He didn't want to say that the people on the streets two nights ago had described people with robes and white masks. "Not a trace of him anywhere. Even tracking charms didn't come up with anything. We're going to start widening our search range tomorrow morning."

After a few seconds, he heard her start bustling around the counter, probably putting on tea. "Did you find out anything from his family?" she asked. Her voice sounded a bit strained. He knew that she was worried too.

"They left him home by himself," Arthur said. He didn't really want to tell her this part either, but he felt worn out and had been keeping his opinion about this to himself all day. "It was already getting dark out, and they all went out without him, and when they got home he was gone. They didn't even tell anyone that he was missing, either."

"Well," Molly began, trying to be fair. He'd known it would be hard for her to understand that they wouldn't even bother looking for a child they'd been taking care of. "It's a bit of a tough spot for them, isn't it? They probably wouldn't have been able to think of a way to get word to Dumbledore or the Ministry, and it's probably best to not get the muggle Police involved in this…"

She trailed off, probably seeing the answer in her husband's still-slumped shoulders.

"Their nephew is missing," he told her, "and all that they would do is tell us to get off of their property."

Behind him, Molly stayed quiet.

Arthur pulled out the picture that he'd been given, a school yearbook picture that had been the only one less than five years old. It was a muggle photograph, a frozen image that would have excited him under different circumstances. But now...

It was a picture of a legend that had until now been faceless, save for a few glimpses of a young couple and a photo of a wiggling, smiling baby still in his mother's arms that was in the prophet years ago. Now, all that Arthur could see was a boy, with a too-thin face, too-big clothes, and smile that really wasn't anything more than a twist up in the corners of his mouth.

"He's younger than Ron," he said, without turning his eyes from the photo. He sounded oddly casual, even to himself. "They'll be in the same year at Hogwarts."

Molly came up to him then, and put her hands on his shoulders.

...

Cheeseman Street, Summersea 

A world away, Harry Potter had no idea of the commotion he was causing.

Even if he had, it probably wouldn't have meant much to him at the moment. Still sitting on the sofa with Moonstream, he was having a hard enough time keeping up with what was happening around him. All that was getting through were Briar's words and a single thought.

They'd said yes? They were letting him stay here?

A huge wave of relief swept through him, and all the tension in his body started to drain out. He didn't really know what was going to happen next, but at least he had somewhere to stay now, and even if they didn't' necessarily _want_ him, they at least didn't mind enough being there enough to say no…

They were still talking, but he could barely understand it anymore. Everything was blurry too, and he blinked several times, rubbing his eyes.

They stopped talking.

"What's wrong? Are you tired?" He wasn't sure who that was, but he thought they were talking to him. Someone else said something quietly, and got his eyes working well enough to realize that everyone was looking at him.

It seemed like they were waiting for something from him, and he abruptly realized that he did have something to say after all. "Th-"

He didn't quite manage to get the words out before he slumped forwards.

His sight almost blacked out completely, but the sound of cries and a pair of hands grabbing tight onto his shoulders pulled him back onto the sofa and back awake.

Harry had still been more tired than anyone had thought, including himself. He'd lasted that long only because of his nerves, and now that he was finally starting to relax, it all came crashing back down on him.

They were talking again, but he couldn't tell what it was anymore.

Someone grabbed onto his hand and pulled him to his feet. Standing was better. Standing made him wake up more. He looked up, blinking, to see that it was the woman with red braids that was holding on to him. She tugged his hand lightly, and Harry blearily realized that she wanted him to follow her

"Come back downstairs once you have him settled," Moonstream called after them as they left the room. "There's more that I need to talk to you about."

Harry followed her through the house. It took all of his focus to keep his eyes open and stay on his feet, so he couldn't really do anything else besides staring stupidly at their still-clasped hands until she stopped in front of a door, turned the knob, and went inside. He managed to get in after her and then stopped, staring blankly at the room in front of them.

He wondered what they were doing here. It was a bedroom, but there was no way that it was meant for him. From what he was still awake enough to figure out, it was bigger than Dudley's, and had a bed that was almost the size of Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon's, and some windows.

"This is our guestroom," Tris explained when he turned to give her the same look that he'd been giving the room. "You won't be staying in here permanently, sorry, but it will do until we can get something cleared out for you."

That made sense, sort of. The Dursleys would have never let him sleep in the guestroom even if there wasn't even any room left in his cupboard for him to squeeze in, so he supposed it was nice of these people to let him use theirs, even for a just a little while.

"You should get some sleep," she told him, letting go of him (he wasn't sure why, but for a moment he wanted to lunge over and grab back on again) and going over to the bed. Confused, Harry looked at one of the windows. It was still the middle of the day.

"But..." he started, and then shut his mouth tight. What was he doing? He couldn't start talking back when he'd just gotten there.

She heard him, but she didn't seem angry. Instead, she told him, "I have no idea what you were doing to get yourself so run down, but I spent the whole way here wondering if you were going to fall over again. You need to sleep. Even if you do lie down for a while now, I think that you'll still be plenty tired enough to sleep tonight."

He still thought that it was strange that he'd be allowed to go bed now, but she was right about the falling-over thing at least. He was trying to stay still, but he could feel his body rocking back at forth a lot, and he was worried that it would rock too far soon. Maybe sleeping _would_ make him feel better. Except...

Something was wrong, Harry realized suddenly, but he was too tired to remember what it was, and he couldn't make himself really focus on anything. Remember. Re-mem-ber. If he couldn't remember, that meant that he forgot it. Forgot. Forgot? Was he forgetting to do something?

Oh, that was right, he hadn't said it yet. He couldn't go to sleep before he said it. He pinched his arm a little to make himself wake up more.

Harry opened his mouth, and then closed it again. What was he supposed to call her, anyway? 'Aunt' probably wasn't good, since she wasn't actually related to him. Even if he did say Aunt, Aunt what? Moonstream called her Trisana, but then everyone had said Tris. That probably didn't matter though, since he knew that you weren't supposed to call adults by their first names unless they said it was okay. What was her last name again? He thought he remembered it – he'd been concentrating really hard when Moonstream told him their names – but he wasn't sure that he had it right. Should he try it anyway?

"Miss Chandler?" he tried quietly. She jumped a little and went tense, and he started worrying that he had got it wrong.

"Don't call me by my last name," she told him, going back to moving around the blankets and pillows. Then she thought for a few seconds and said, "or my first name either, for that matter."

"Then...what –," he stammered, bewildered.

"It's Tris," she told him, straitening back up and looking at him. "I don't like _Trisana_, Tris is fine. Do you remember the blonde woman downstairs?"

Harry nodded.

"It's the same with her. She'll want you to call her Sandry, not 'Lady Sandrilene' and all that. Anyway, what did you want to say?"

"Thank you," he said in a rush, "For letting me stop- no, stay...for letting me stay here." Talking was starting to get hard. "I won't cause any trouble. No, I meant – ". Wait, he'd gotten that last part right the first time. "Never mind," he mumbled, and then he thought about how that would sound and quickly added, "Not about saying thank you and everything else, about the..."

He knew that he wasn't making much sense, and she might think he was weird for talking like that, but at least he'd said it now.

She didn't answer right away, which might have worried him more if he wasn't fighting with all he had to keep from passing out in the middle of the room. Then she pulled the covers down and said, "It's alright. Come lie down."

Harry climbed into the bed. The whole room seemed to be spinning around him, do he just rested his head on the pillow, too tired to move around anymore. He only sort-of noticed when Tris pulled the curtains closed, but he did notice when she came back over to the bed, tugged his shoes off, covered him with the blankets and smoothed them over.

This feels nice, Harry thought, just before he fell asleep.

He hadn't meant just the bed.

...

Tris waited by the bed until she saw the boy's eyes flutter closed and his rise and fall of his chest slow down with his breath. It didn't take long; he was asleep in less than a minute. He hadn't even remembered to take off his spectacles. She reached down and gently worked them off. As Tris lifted the lenses away from his head, she noticed something in the semi-darkness. Between a part in his bangs, she could see something on his forehead. She frowned, and then reached back down to touch it. She couldn't make it out all that well with so little light, but she could feel the rough line bending sharply. Just as she was about to push his hair back, the boy shifted in his sleep. Not wanting to wake him, she pulled her hand away and left the room.

A scar? she wondered as she headed back down the stairs. It would be hard to tell without getting a better look at it, but the shape hadn't felt like a something that would have happened by accident. She thought briefly about his family, but then pushed it pulled her mind away. The obviously hand-me-down clothes and the way that the boy had talked had told her more than Harry himself had, but she still didn't know enough to make any assumptions.

They were waiting for her downstairs, some more patiently than others.

"What he said before," Briar started, before Tris had even made it back to her seat "about not knowing how he got to the temple, how do you know that he was telling the truth? If he doesn't like his family, what if he's lying about not knowing how he got to the temple or where he came from so he doesn't have to go back."

"That's actually a valid point." Daja said, frowning.

_So nothing else that I've said is? _Briar grumbled.

_We can talk about that later. _Sandry told him. Daja didn't let anything of the silent exchange show on her face as she went on to say, "How _do _you know that he isn't making things up. It would make this whole situation much simpler if he was."

Before answering, Moonstream turned to Tris. "Is he asleep?"

Tris nodded.

"He gave the same answers to us, and Lark was the one who questioned him," Moonstream said, now speaking to all of them.

None of them really had any arguments to that. They all knew firsthand how difficult it was to lie to their foster-mother.

"In fact," she continued, "even the things that he _could_ tell us didn't make any sense. He told us the name of the place that he was from, but it's not a place that I or anyone that I have asked has ever heard of. _He _has never heard of Summersea before, either, and you were wondering about his accent yourselves."

Moonstream looked at them carefully. They all still seemed a somewhat doubtful, but they were all listening intently. She went on.

"I was hoping that while he's staying here, the four of you could keep an eye on him. Since this whole situation is a mystery, see what you can find out and piece together what you can."

"If you're so concerned about where he came from, why are you giving him to us?" Daja said. "Why not keep him at the temple so you can all watch him yourselves?"

"That's exactly what the problem with leaving him at the temple _is._ By the morning after he appeared every Dedicate was already gossiping about him. If we keep him there, it would only be a matter of time before the Mage Council gets involved."

The four of them looked at each other, and then Sandry asked, "How exactly was he found?"

"_I _found him," Moonstream informed her, "and I don't feel sure of how it happened myself. One moment he wasn't there, then there was a bright light, and then he was. On top of that, I was in a secluded, guarded area of the Hub at the time, so I doubt that he managed to get that far on his own."

Clearly, it didn't make any more sense to them than it had to her.

"Some kind of transportation magic?" Tris asked. She started fiddling with the end of one of her braids absentmindedly. "I've never heard of anything that worked like that."

"He isn't a mage," said Moonstream. "Myself and several other mages examined him, and we couldn't find anything. We even used methods that would have let us see it if he normally has magic but had just used up his power, and we found nothing."

Tris looked like was about to ask more about that, but then she seemed to notice something in Moonstream's face. "What are you thinking?"

"There was something else about what he told us that seemed…odd," Moonstream began, and even Briar was paying very close attention now.

"I mentioned before that he said he was being chased. His arm was bleeding when I found him. He says that he was hit by something that he thinks came from his pursuers."

"An arrow?" Sandry asked.

Moonstream shook her head. "The injury wasn't quite right for that. It looks more like a friction burn that tore the skin. He described whatever hit him as 'like a bullet made out of light, or something,' and I have no idea what that means, so don't bother asking. However, it does sound like a magical attack."

Briar was frowning slightly. "He's hurt?"

"It's not a serious injury, and it has been healing well. You should still check on it later tonight to make sure it doesn't become infected."

Briar was nodding, clearly making a mental note for himself. Tris smirked knowingly at Sandry. Even for someone as used to dealing with injuries as Briar was, he had let himself get sidetracked a little too quickly considering how reluctant he was acting at having the boy there.

Moonstream continued. "The possibility that he was attacked by mages is concerning enough, but he also told us that he saw that same sort of light coming not directly from them, or around whatever their target was, but from the ends of wooden sticks."

"Sticks?" Sandry repeated, as if she'd misheard her.

"Apparently, they all had one."

"What kind of magic would anyone need _sticks_ for," Briar asked sceptically.

_What kind of Green Mage questions that there is a value in anything made of wood? _Tris jibed.

"Not any that I've heard of," Moonstream told him, "but I suppose that means we should pay more attention to whatever magic got him inside the Hub being so unusual."

For a minute or so, no one said anything. Briar grabbed a cookie off the tray that was still sitting on the table.

"So we have a boy who somehow broke into the Hub – when he wasn't even in Winding Circle to begin with – and has no idea of how he managed that, came from Trader knows where, is connected to some new kind of magic, doesn't know how to get back to his family, and apparently doesn't _want_ to get back to his family..." Daja summarized.

"Anything else that you didn't tell us that we should know about?" Briar muttered.

"Just one more thing," Moonstream said.

"Of course there is."

"Don't use magic around him for a little while."

All of them stared at her.

"...Why?" Daja asked after a while.

"He doesn't know what mages are," Moonstream explained, "which is something else that tells us that he's probably not from Summersea."

That explanation didn't help things much.

"'Probably not from Summersea' doesn't even begin to cover that," Tris said, brow furrowing. "Where in Shurri's name would someone have to be living to have never heard of mages, even if that someone is still a child?"

"Lark didn't want to say too much right away, since he seemed confused , but she tried to find out what he did know without probing too deeply. She asked him if he knew what magic is, and he just stared at her and then told her that his Aunt and Uncle said that magic isn't real. So he is either from somewhere where magic is heard of, but not present, or he has been lied to."

Sandry, Daja, and Briar were all still a little stuck on 'magic isn't real', but Tris was already thinking things through.

"But you think whoever was chasing him was probably using magic," she said.

"Which would indicate that he was lied to."

"He's going to have to be told about it eventually," Daja told Moonstream. "There's only so long that we can hide it if he sees Briar's plants moving or Tris shooting off sparks, and we're not the only mages in Summersea."

"I did not mean for you to keep it from him indefinitely," Moonstream answered, "just for you to wait until he adjusts more to being here before you explain things fully to him. On the way here, he was looking around him as if he's never even seen outside before, let alone Summersea. I think at this point, he could become overwhelmed easily."

The four of them went quiet, sort of.

_This is ridiculous_, Briar said. _One of us will slip up by tonight._

Sandry bit her lip a little while she thought. _Maybe not. We usually try not to use magic for little things as it is. When we're here, me and Daja usually just use our magic when we're working, and even then it's not always that obvious unless whoever's watching can see magic. We could keep him out of the garden and Briar's workroom when he's in there, and as long as Tris can keep herself under control-_

_It's good to know that you all have so much confidence in me, _Tris commented dryly.

_You know what I mean_, Sandry told her. _Your magic isn't as easy as ours to keep in, and when it comes out it's a lot harder to miss. Anyway, it will only be for a little while._

"What about Chime?" Tris asked out loud. Briar's mood got even worse at the reminder about the glass dragon. He and Tris had been interrupted in their argument over the damage she'd done to his _Shakkans. _"She'll be a bit hard for him to miss if he's living here."

"I've thought about that," Moonstream admitted. "Maybe just being a bit vague about where she came from will work for now."

Tris's brow furrowed. "She came from a ball of molten glass because the glassblower was struck by lightning, lost control of the power he didn't know he had, sucked in random charms off of the street, and then somehow managed to not only create a sentient being, but a sentient being that was in the form of a creature that doesn't even exist outside of legends. How exactly am I supposed to be 'a bit vague' about that without even _mentioning_ magic?"

"Well...maybe just don't say anything about where she came from, then."

Moonstream sighed, and closed her eyes briefly. "What I'm hoping for most by leaving him here is that you can give him as normal an environment as possible." When all four of them opened their mouths to comment on their ability to do _normal_, she cut over them with, "Notice that I said _normal as possible_." They closed their mouths again. "He seems to be very emotionally stressed right now, and it would be best for him to be able to settle down quickly. Keep an eye on him, and if whoever was chasing him before comes looking for him, deal with them in whatever way seems best to you."

After that, the conversation got lighter. They talked some about living arrangements for Harry, and more about what was happening at the temple, and before long Moonstream was heading out the door, meeting her guards in the street, and then on her way back to the temple.

"So, now what?" Briar asked dryly. It was just them now, and there was no need to speak through their bond anymore.

"Now," said Tris, "I suppose I start to see what we can have for dinner, and we wait for him to wake up."

_TBC_

…

**If anyone is wondering why Briar seems so hostile to Harry being there, it's not that he has any real problem with him personally. His superficial reasoning is that he knows how much of a bother this is going to be. More deeply, it's because Briar still has a lot of his own issues to deal with from being in the war, and he can tell that whatever role he has with Harry is not going to end up be as minor as Moonstream suggested at the end of the last chapter. He also has some doubts about his ability to step up at this point (example: see Briar's attitude towards the idea of becoming Evvy's teacher in "Street Magic"). Also, if Moonstream had said 'Either you take him or he's ending up on the streets' he would have agreed more quickly, but he knows that if they had refused, the temple still would have taken him in. He'll come around tho :)**

**The girls agreed because more easily because Daja was a bit worried about Harry and could think more level-headedly about the whole thing, Tris could not have rejected him while he was there listening (too many bad memories from her own childhood), and Sandry…well, Sandry was Sandry.**

**So, I started answering reviews in PMs. There were a couple that I couldn't respond to because reviewers had PMs blocked on their settings (except I think SilverFoxQueen. I was on a trip when I got your review, and then I forgot to reply, and then it just got embarrassingly late. Sorry). I'm not going to go through those reviews now, because it's after 10 pm here and I still need to do research for an assignment and it will take me a while to dig out those specific reviews, but after this chapter I'll try to keep better track, so I can answer them and anonymous reviewers in my updates. Thank you to everyone that's been giving me support!**

**Speaking of reviews…I just figured out that about 73 people have this story +alerted, but I usually only get about 10 or 11 reviews a chapter. Moar plz? :D**

**Hope this update was somewhat enjoyable, and that it contains a minimal amount of grammatical errors.**

**-emi**


	5. Chapter 5

**So, I looked up the story to check a detail for the writing a couple days ago and my heart stopped for a second when I saw the last update date. I am so, so sorry. **

**I kind of changed my mind on what was going to happen in this chapter a couple of times. I was originally going to bring in some more of the characters for Harry to meet here, but then realized that it would be too much too soon for him to handle. Then I wanted this to be an HP universe chapter, but I got writers block on it (we'll see what's happening in England next update). So the end result is definitely much shorter (and possibly not as well edited) than what anyone still waiting on this deserves, but hopefully still sweet. It's mainly the "so now what" sinking in. **

**IMPORTANT NOTICE TO ANYONE WHO HAS ME ON AUTHOR ALERT: following the posting of this chapter, I will attempt to change my username to "Veery". I have reasons. **

** ….**

Harry woke up and tried to stay asleep.

He didn't want to get up. His cupboard felt so much more comfortable than usual, and his body still felt so heavy. He rolled back over and tried to fall back into his dream.

Some parts of it were strange, or scary, but it still wasn't all a bad dream. There was a whole new place and being on a _horse _and getting to go out on Halloween. And there were people in it unlike any that Harry ever remembered knowing that said that it was alright for him to be there.

Most of all, it was something _different_. Something that never would have been allowed to happen at Privet Drive. Harry wanted to stay in it for as long as he could.

That was easy. It seemed so real.

There was a tapping sound.

Probably Aunt Petunia coming to wake him up

His heart sank.

I'll give it one more chance, he decided. I'll open my eyes and it will be real.

Harry opened his eyes.

It was real.

His cupboard was more comfortable than usual because it wasn't his cupboard. Instead, he was lying on a bed almost as big as Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon's. He stretched out his arms and legs as wide as they could go and only felt one edge.

Blinking, he tried to look around. Everything was dark and blurry. He fumbled around the edge of the bed until he felt a table, and then his glasses on the table. He put them on. Still dark, but less blurry.

There wasn't much he could make out. He thought that the blanket on him was brown, and that there were flowers on one of the vague, large shapes that might have been a desk, but he wasn't sure. Most of the light he did have came from the lit outline of a window in the wall behind his head. The bit of light peeping around the curtains wouldn't have been enough for him to see with if he wasn't used to it. It was getting close to evening, probably.

Then he woke up enough to remember that he was in a house with strangers, and the panic set back in.

Was it alright that he had slept for so long? Aunt Petunia wouldn't have let him, but there might be some different rules here. What time was it, anyway? Probably late enough for Dedicate Moonstream to have left, which meant that he was alone with them now.

Alone.

Then it clicked, and he felt an odd tingling feeling go up his back.

No one else from Privet Drive was here.

Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon weren't here to tell them that he was bad like did with his teacher. Right now, they didn't know anything besides what Moonstream had said. Harry took another quick look around what he could see of the room. They probably didn't know much about him if they were letting him sleep in here until they figured out what else to do with him.

Harry didn't know how long they would let him stay or how long it would take them to figure out how to get him back to the Dursleys, but he did want them to like him at least a little bit. If he could act good enough now, maybe they didn't have to know how much trouble he was. He would still be a burden to take care of – he didn't know how to change that – but since they had decided to take him instead of being stuck with him like his Aunt and Uncle were maybe they wouldn't mind so much as long as he was good.

The only problem was, it was hard enough to be good even when he knew all the rules, let alone when he didn't

Like right now. What was he supposed to do now that he was awake? Would they want him doing things downstairs, or would they rather he stay out of sight up here? If they'd left him alone to sleep for this long it might be better to stay where he was.

Fortunately, he didn't have to wonder about it anymore when there was another tap on the door – he'd forgotten, the tapping was real too

Harry froze. The door opened anyway.

"Oh good, you're up."

It was the big, dark-skinned woman with the beads in her hair. It was hard to see her face, but the light from the open door coming in behind her was enough for him to see that the room was probably yellow, and at least as big as the second bedroom in his Aunt and Uncle's house.

"Er…." He tried to start. Another wave of panic hit him.

"Daja," she told him. To his relief, she didn't seem angry that he had forgot.

"Daja," he tried again, "What time is it?"

Harry cringed. Should he have said something else?

"It's getting close to suppertime," she said. She leaned back against the door frame. "We didn't want you to miss it, so we thought it would be a good time to get you up. How are you feeling."

"Fine," he mumbled. Did they want him up in time to eat dinner or to help make it?

She looked at him for a few more seconds. Harry wished he could make out more of her expression.

"I'm going to see if Tris will let me help with dinner. Do you remember how to get back downstairs?"

Harry didn't remember much of anything about getting to the bedroom, but he nodded anyway. He didn't want them thinking he was stupid already.

"Come down whenever you're ready,"

She was already gone by the time he thought to ask her what he should do.

…

"How is he?" Tris asked. She looked like she was still focusing on the pot, but Sandry knew better.

"Awake." Daja sighed and pushed back the braids that had fallen over her face, "overwhelmed, mildly terrified."

Sandry, who hadn't been quite so capable at resisting the urge to eavesdrop, added "his accent is adorable though, whatever it is."

"'Whatever it is' is a little more important than you three like to think," Briar grumbled. He was perched on the kitchen stool, finished the potato and vegetable slicing duty that Tris had given him to let him work some of his frustration out with knives. "How exactly are we supposed to make sense of where he came from if the whole temple couldn't figure it out again?"

"It wasn't the whole temple," Daja reminded him, Just the people that found out. And I think we've got time. From what Moonstream said, he'll be here until we do."

Briar groaned. "Why did we agree to this again?"

"Would you have really said no?"

Briar shot a wary look at Tris. "What?"

Sandry felt the little tug in the web-threads she had all around the house from out in the hall. She almost said something, but changed her mind at the last second. There was no way that Tris hadn't already noticed too.

"If we hadn't been there to say yes," Tris went on, still sounding much too casual, "and she was only asking you, would you have really said no? Told her with him sitting right there that you didn't want him, and that she would have to take him somewhere else?"

"I still think this was a terrible idea even _with_ you three," Briar muttered mutinously. Tris stopped what she was doing and stared at him, waiting.

Briar glared. "You know I wouldn't have. And it's not about not wanting him."

Finally, even Briar in the mood he was in couldn't fail to notice the little shuffling sound from the doorway. Slowly, reluctantly, and already knowing what to expect, he turned to look.

Harry was still wearing those dreadful, bizarre-looking clothes from earlier – and once again, Sandry felt herself fighting the urge to just start tugging away threads with her power until it at least _fit – _but he had taken off the thick, outer layer and was left with just a thinner white shirt with sleeves down to his elbows on top. He hovered in the doorway like he was ready to bolt at any moment, but he was staring at Briar.

Briar's glare at Tris doubled. _You knew he was there, didn't you?_

_Yes. _

Briar recovered well enough, loudly reminding them all of the injury Moonstream said he had on his arm and bustling him off to look at it. The boy shrank back a bit when Briar came towards him, but allowed himself to be led off without any resistance.

Sandry took a quick peek after them. Briar and Harry sat on the same sofa Moonstream had taken earlier. Briar was rolling up the boy's oversized sleeve to get a look as Daja went to fetch his kit for him, using an amount of care that that seemed totally out of place with his gruff attitude.

She smiled, and then walked back down the hall into the kitchen. As much as she wanted to see if he was alright herself, she didn't want him to feel overwhelmed

She was just about to help start cleaning up a bit when she felt the twinge of surprise from Briar.

"What is it?" she heard Daja ask, distantly. Sandry slipped in behind her eyes to see for herself.

Briar had gotten the bandages off and was still holding onto the boy's arm, frowning. Daja was looking over his shoulder. At first Sandry thought they were surprised at how thin his arm was (it was what _she _was frowning at) but then Daja found the right angle to see in the dim light and she gasped.

The injury on his arm looked like it had already been healing for a while, but Sandry knew better to judge how long he'd had it by that. She could feel traces of Rosethorn coming from the bandages. The patch of skin just under his shoulder looked mostly brown and wrinkled, but she could see pink under where it had cracked. There were spots that looked as if they'd blistered and burst and running though the center was a thick scabbed line. It looked almost like…

_A burn_, Briar told her. He gently lifted the arm a little higher to get a better look. _It's like a burn, but it was bleeding in the middle when he got it. Burns shouldn't do that. _

_Friction burn?_ Tris asked. She had set down the ladle she was using and was heading for the kitchen door

_Not unless someone threw a rug at him._

Harry was glancing up at Briar and Daja. He looked confused. They were slipping up, Sandry realized. The four of them had plenty of practice keeping their expressions neutral when they talked to each other, but they were starting to let it show.

Nervously, he fidgeted and tugged down on the front of his hair with one hand.

"Dinner's ready," said Tris, poking her head out into the sitting room.

…

Sandry beamed a smile. It felt a bit forced.

"Have a seat," she told Harry encouragingly. He scrambled to do as he was told a bit more quickly that most children would have, settling in next to Tris and across from her.

Daja had found a table for the dining room that was small enough to be comfortable, but large enough to fit more than just the four of them. As glad as she was for it now, it wasn't making this any easier. Most mealtimes in Daja's house could pass by in a companionable silence, with all of them absorbed in whatever they had been working on. This time, their welcome little intruder was leaving Sandry at a loss for words.

This was his first meal with them, and Sandry found herself anxious for it to go well. This would be his first real impression of them. She didn't want to make him regret wanting to stay here.

Harry certainly wasn't giving her much too work with. Aside from a barely audible "Thank you" when Tris served him, he didn't make a sound. Now he was just looking at the candle on the table like he'd never seen one before.

Tris had made stew for dinner. Sandry knew that Daja would be annoyed at her if she admitted it, but she thought it tasted much better than anything that the cook that the readhead had chased off ever made. Harry sat and stared at it in consternation for a moment, but when he saw the others digging in with their spoons he did the same. His eyes widened. After another quick look around he shoved another spoonful with potato and vegetable along with the mouthful he was still chewing.

"So," Sandry blurted out, "you're six?"

The room had been dead silent when she had spoken. The boy jumped, then with a mouth still full of stew gave an almost frantic nod.

Sandry internally winced.

The table went quiet again. At least, it did to Harry.

_Try relaxing a bit. You seem a little tense and it's making him nervous._

_You wanted this, you make it work._

Briar always had been a little less tactful than Daja.

Even Sandry had to admit that this was getting awkward. Surely, she had dealt with more delicate situations than this.

But every one that she could think of that happened outside of her Winding Circle family – which this boy was part of, now – was something that she could use her power and her politics to help her fix. Even saving Gudrunny hadn't taken more than ordering her husband to be dragged away and hiring a maid.

She looked at Harry carefully. He was fiddling with his hair again, pulling down on the messy locks framing his face to pull it down flat against his forehead. It sprang back up as soon as it slipped out from his fingers.

What did they look like to him? Moonstream had told them that he didn't know about magic, but she knew that the four of them were strange enough even without their powers. Was he feeling relief at being able to escape from wherever he was before? Terror, at being left alone with these strangers?

This boy was _theirs _now, at least until they managed to sort out where he came from. If they were going to do right by him, they would have to work out which one it was.

Sandry thought back. The only real similarity between this and her brief stay in Winding Circle's dormitories was being around new people. The closest experience that she had to compare it to was going to Discipline Cottage, but even that wasn't close to what this boy would have to worry about. Sandry had had Lark and the knowledge of her own importance as the Duke's niece to let her feel safe. The others would be able to understand better, but the only one that could really relate would be…

_Don't pity me, _Tris chimed in. Sheknew Sandry well enough to guess where her thoughts where going.

Briar reached over to lightly nudged Harry. "Don't mind the Duchess over there. She means well. She just doesn't know how to read us common folk sometimes."

Harry looked up at him, startled. "It's okay if she doesn't know how to read."

The silence after that was more stunned than awkward.

Harry clapped his hands over his mouth as soon as he noticed the looks on their faces. His eyes jumped from person to person, and as everyone simply watched him back his eyes gained a glaze and his breath hitched faster in his chest.

Finally, Sandry knew what to do.

"Harry," she said, leaning further across the table to be on eye level and stretching a hand to brush across his cheek, "Harry, look at me."

Gaze faltering, Harry looked up.

"Did you understand what Briar said?"

Harry shook his head miserably. There was something in the way that he sat hunched into himself that reminded her of Briar and Tris when they first came to Discipline. The sight made her chest ache.

"Why are you upset?"

_That _was clearly not what he was expecting . He sat up a little straighter in his seat and floundered, mouth opening and closing several times he tried to come up with something to say.

"I'll be quiet," he finally whispered, and something seemed very, very wrong with that.

"Don't," she told him. Harry's head jerked back up, "it was nice to finally hear you talk."

His went huge with shock and amazement. "Really?"

"Yes," she told him, "Do any of us look angry?"

Harry's gaze darted between her and the others. Sandry kept her eyes on him and hoped that everyone else was behaving themselves.

The awe in his face only got bigger when she smiled at him, and she felt a rush of warmth.

"And just so you know," she said, attempting to lighten the mood and ignore that her eyes were on the verge of tearing up too, "I _do_ know how to read."

Harry flushed a little bit, but since he wasn't cringing Sandry decided to take it as a victory.

There was a choked sound from her right.

"Don't you dare," she said, without turning. Harry looked confused again.

Briar did make a valiant effort, but then Tris just _cackled _and he lost it.

Sandry turned to them with a haughty look. "It's not _that_ funny."

That just made them laugh harder. Tris muttered something to Briar, and the only bit Sandry could make out sounded suspiciously like _read. _

Sandry rolled her eyes. Honestly, they were acting more like children than Harry was. She turned to Daja for support only to see the corners of her mouth twitching.

The last bit of tension in the room seemed to drain out as soon as their eyes met. Then the image of Briar and Harry staring at each other just after he had spoken – Briar's face taken-aback, Harry's blank – flashed into her mind.

Sandry and Daja's mouths both simultaneously morphed into full grins. Sandry giggled.

And it was all worth it when the bewildered expression on Harry's face slowly morphed into that first, tiny, tentative smile.

…

**Annnd the chapter ends with one big gigglefest. (Iregretnothing). **

**I just want to apologize for any possible inaccuracies that I might have here in regards to the house. Will of the Empress is sadly limited in its descriptions. I'll be combing it through later, but I left the layout stuff till the last minute and at the moment I really just want to get this posted. I'm also sorry if I've missed something editing. My Dad was also supposed to come pick me up so I can watch my brother and sister for the day like 15 minutes ago, and I'm trying to get it up before he gets here. **


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